The Anchor as a Symbol of Hope

"We have this hope as an anchor to the soul, firm and secure" Hebrews 6:19

Hope is my favorite virtue. Also, a couple months ago I fell in love with anchors. They have been using anchors on a lot of clothing items lately and also on bags, and I thought they were so cute and bought myself a necklace. Later, I went to James Avery, a silver jewelry store and I saw that they were selling an anchor cross. The vendor explained that the anchor was a symbol of hope and he recited Hebrews 6:19. I thought that was extremely cool and my love for anchors grew. I didn't really understand the bible verse completely, so I decided to do a little bit of research. I love what I discovered. 

So why are anchors used as a symbol of hope?

Anchors are heavy objects attached to a rope or chain used to secure a ship in a particular place. Used as a verb, to anchor means to secure something firmly in position or to provide with a firm basis or foundation. Because of the great importance in navigation, the anchor was regarded a symbol of safety because it would prevent the boat from drifting due to wind or current. It became the captain's last resort when the boat was close to sinking. 

The anchor then became a key Christian symbol during the period of Roman persecution. Anchors would be used instead of crosses in the epitaphs of the believers' tombs showing the hope Christians felt in their anticipation of heaven.

For that reason, anchors serve as a symbol of safety, a symbol of hope in the future. Just as anchors prevent ships from drifting away due to wind or current and cast unto the sand. As they hold a ship securely, so hope can keep our soul at rest, safe as if anchored in the harbor. Even in the midst of suffering, distress, oppression, or deep sorrow, it remains firm. It provides safety and sustains us. 

About hope

Hope is a yearning with expectation or anticipation. Used as a noun, it is to aspire, desire, wish, aim, goal, and plan. But to "have hope" means to want something desperately to happen. To expect, anticipate, and look for something. What is that something we expect and anticipate? Jesus. 

Hope in Christ

Christ is the unfailing hope. If Christ is hope, then He is our anchor. We are safe and secure by him. Trust Him and love him during beautiful and happy times and also and let Him take care of you in difficult times. If you believe in Him, you will have eternal life. That eternal life is what we are all searching for. That unending happiness by being surrounded by our father. I hope for that! 

Hope in your daily life

That hope in Christ is what drives my every action.We should have hope in everything you do. Have hope that better days are coming. Have hope in people, and especially have hope in yourself. If you don't believe that your work and your life will make a difference, that you can make tomorrow better for someone, your life will begin to lose meaning. 

I got this anchor-cross necklace at James Avery yesterday. I had wanted it for a really long time but finally decided to get it since I'm going to be traveling to so many different places, I need a reminder of Christ and hope. I need Him to be my guide as I travel across the waters.

Also, just a reminder that if you are going through a difficult time in your life right now or you are struggling with something, it is very difficult to have hope. If that is the case, I encourage you to pray to Jesus and ask him for a renewed hope and strength to carry on. I believe in you, you can get through it! Never give up! Always have hope because pain ends. 

Awakening

I am so sorry I have not posted anything for the past few days, but I went on a retreat, and they took away all of our phones and electronic devices. It was actually a really good rest from all the technology and just had time to focus on God. The retreat was so much fun and it brought many graces to me!

The program is called Awakening, and many college campuses have it around the United States. Basically, there are a lot of things I cannot talk about because it would ruin the amazing retreat for people who have not attended yet because it is so full of amazing surprises. I usually hate surprises, but the surprises that were encountered in this retreat were phenomenal! There are definitely things that I can talk about though. For example, they divide the whole retreat into families. You have a mom, a dad, and gophers, who basically go for anything you ask them for help with. There were different talks and activities, skits, adoration, praise and worship, and confession. At first, I was a little annoyed that we could only spend time with our 'families' and didn't really get to know anyone else in the retreat but in the end it ended up being really great because I ended up becoming really close to a lot of the members of the group.

Highlights from the retreat include-

• My friend Catherine told me that every time you go to a retreat, you receive a certain grace from God, and that you should specifically ask him for one. Well, at the beginning of the retreat we had adoration and I prayed and asked Jesus for the grace to trust him. A few minutes later, I went to confession. After telling the priest my sins, he thought for a long time and asked me: "What should your penance be? I can't think of the right thing!" I just looked at him, and he was in silence for about 30 seconds. Then, he told me: ok, go back out there in front of the blessed sacrament and pray to Jesus, and tell him that you trust him. I WAS IN SHOCK. I told him what had happened a few minutes earlier and he told me: "Well, God loves filling you with his grace. It's a grace!" I was overwhelmed and so happy, I couldn't believe what had happened.
• On Saturday night, we had affirmation time, where everyone in the 'family' told each other what was great abut one another, and I was really surprised about what people noticed in me that I would never notice otherwise. It definitely boosted my confidence as well.
• My right kidney started hurting Friday night and I was really scared that I would have another kidney stone during the retreat. I prayed so hard to Jesus and ask him to please not let it happen, but that I trusted him. I was in pain for the whole retreat and that made me upset because I could have had a much better time that what I did, but the pain didn't increase so that was amazing. Also, my 'mom' in the group kept asking me if I was alright, and she was very sweet and supportive. Even thought I thought we wouldn't get along at first, it ended up being great.

So overall, I learned that we are all part of the mystical body of Christ, and that you never know how many people out there are praying for you! We should all also pray for others every day because it can have a significant effect in their lives. 

If you are a college student, I really encourage you to go on this amazing retreat! You won't regret it! Also, a really cool thing is that once you attend, you can help at any other Awakening retreat in the nation! Pretty great, huh?

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Day 20 of Lent

Wow, Lent is halfway over. I need to step up my game! I am confident the rest of lent will be extremely fruitful though.

• Live for Others Jar- I got my cousin, Ricardo. How weird is that? Out of a 1100 people, I pulled out someone in my own family. He is actually my favorite cousin because he is so sweet and caring. He always remembers about my family and makes sure to keep in touch with us. Today, I could not go to mass because I had a newspaper meeting, but I prayed a rosary for him, and messaged him on facebook telling him how much he means to me.
• 'Good Deed A Day'- Tell someone how much they mean to you. There is a senior in my communications class that is really good at giving speeches. She is so pretty and extremely sweet. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote her a note and told her that she was really good at giving speeches and that she was also very pretty and nice. She found my number somehow and texted me saying that it meant a lot to her. Today, I stopped her and told her that she was amazing and a role-model to me and I think she really appreciated it.
• Positive experience of the day- today we had 4th day, where we meet up after the retreat and look at pictures and share all the positive experiences that happened. It was really fun. I also had a newspaper meeting and Mary, the Business office manager was really nice to me and helped me with a speech that I have to give tomorrow.
• 3 Things I am grateful for:

1. Retreats
2. Water
3. Warm temperature

• Prayer intentions-  for my Child Development teacher, whose grandson just miscarried, for the lunch lady who I promised that I would pray for her because her mother is really sick, for my grandmother, that I have the ability to give a good speech tomorrow, for my cousin, and for all the members of crusader awakening6 and 7. 

What is the purpose of life?

 At the beginning of every philosophy class, out professor ask us a question to answer for ourselves and then share with the class if we would like to. Today, he asked the most difficult question. "What is the purpose of life?" I have asked myself this questions several times during my relatively short life, and my answer depends on how I'm feeling that day. Some days, I feel like there really is no purpose, like everyone just wakes up and goes to work, tries to make money, survive, and that's the end of it. Some other days though, I feel like the purpose of our lives is to become the best-version-of ourselves to help others achieve happiness and ultimately go to heaven. Suffering is necessary to become the best-version of yourself.

A lot of people in the class answered that the purpose of life is to be happy. I totally disagree with that. I believe that being happy is our greatest desire, and we will only fully achieve that when we are in Paradise, but I don't think God just created us to be happy. God created us because He is great. It is because He is good that we are, that we exist. He did not create us out of necessity; He did not need us. He did not create us out of justice; he owed us nothing. It is to his sheer love that we owe our existence. Therefore, I believe that our purpose is to love with all of our soul and help others reach happiness so that someday too we can be in Paradise. Can you Only Imagine what heaven will be like? It's going to be the most beautiful sight in the world. 

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Day 13 of Lent

• Finally finished the 'Live for Others Jar'. It took me about 2 hours to finish writing down names and cut them up.  I feel so proud of it though! Today, I picked out Madison. She went to my high school and she was class president and probably one of the most popular girls in school, or so I thought. I had a conversation with her senor year and she said that she had really lost all her friends and didn't know what to do with herself. I told her that we should be friends and hang out, but we never really did because, well, she's a lot "cooler" than me and we have different personalities, but I kept being kind to her. Today, I offered up mass for her and practiced the good deed of the day on her.

So many names to write out!

What the finished jar looks like

• Good Deed of the Day- "Call Someone on the phone to let them know you have been thinking about them". So I was a little nervous about this one because Madison and I weren't close friends so it would be a little bit strange just calling her, but I had courage and dialed the phone. She didn't answer, but I left a message saying: {Hi! I thought of you today and was just calling to say hey and was just wondering how everything was going for you in college and to tell you that I miss you and hope you are having a great day.} I'm pretty sure she heard the message, but she didn't text or call back. I just hope it meant something to her and it at least made her smile. 
• Positive Experience- I lost my geometry notebook and I was looking for it the whole day and was really worried because it has all the notes I need for the year in it. I prayed to St. Anthony, called my brother to look for it at home, and looked everywhere in the room. Later, I had a weird 'vision' (aka remembering where you left something) so I went to look for it there, and there it was. It was such a good feeling of relief!
• 3 Things I am grateful for-

1. My Philosophy professor, he is amazing!
2. St. Anthony
3. Colored pens

• Prayer intentions- For a girl who asked for prayers on Facebook, for all the mothers considering abortion, and those who have no one to help them with everything. 

Discouraged

Today was hard. I felt really discouraged to keep on dong what I am doing for Lent. I just thought about it for a while and realized that it won't really make a difference. Later in the day I went to mass and realized that I should keep going because it's lent, and Jesus didn't give up on us on the way to the cross, so there is no way I'm giving up on him because of stupid reasons.

The reason why I was upset about it today is because my good friend back from  high school was in town but she told me she couldn't hang out with me this week because she was really busy and I totally understood. My other friend just had surgery and told me that she didn't really feel up to hanging out because it hurt. I totally understood. I went to her house for less than 3 minutes to leave her some treats and tell her to get well soon. Everything was fine, but today, I log on to twitter and find out that those two friends hung out yesterday and watched movies and went out and I just felt extremely stupid about everything. The only reason why it hurts so much is because people always do that to me. I don't know what it is about me, but it happens very often. I get over it eventually, but then it happens again. It was just hard today because there I was, dedicating my day to someone for lent and I was really loving humanity and thinking everyone is beautiful but at the same time realizing that no one cares.

That's when I went back to the 'Real Friends' blog post and my own thoughts and word reassured me. Real friends are hard to find. And we should love everyone we encounter with all of our hearts, even if they don't love us in return. So, I am not giving up, I may be discouraged, but I am not quitting. I went to mass and the lyrics to the following song really spoke to me:

This reminded me of why I'm running to the cross. 

I think the following days will be better. Spring Break is over, and I will be returning to campus, and there are a lot more opportunities to perform good deeds there and I can go to daily mass and adoration and I am going on a Retreat next weekend. I am so excited about it.

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Day 12 of Lent

• Live for others Jar- I refused to take a name out of the Jar and I feel really bad about it now. I won't do that again. I will live tomorrow fully for the person that gets picked.
• Good Deed- none (terrible I know).
• Positive experience- My friend Megan spent the night at my house because campus wasn't open yet, so I got to watch a couple of movies with her and just hang around my house and talk to her, ad that as really nice. My mom, my sister, and my brother also returned from their trip, and my brother was so excited to see me, and gave me a lot of hugs, and that made me smile.
• 3 things I am grateful for:

1. My brother
2. Snow-cones
3. Teen Mass

• Prayer intentions-  for my new roommate's mom who is having surgery tomorrow, for myself so I can continue my lenten promises and continue getting closer to Jesus, and for all of those who live in countries that are not free. 

How to Be Happier

Every human on this earth is on the search for happiness. Everyone's greatest desire is to be happy. But how do we get there? A lot of people think money or fulfilling your pleasures brings the most happiness, but in reality they don't. Look at celebrities, they seem to have everything: beauty, money, cars, fans, unlimited trips, but they lack happiness. They end up getting hooked on drugs and alcohol, and many of them commit suicide. Why aren't they happy? Don't they have everything? No. They actually have nothing. They have nothing because they do not have Christ. 

People who have the least things are often the happiest, most generous, and most compassionate. They learn to give not because they have much, but they know exactly what it feels like to have nothing. But the truth is, that they have everything if they have Christ. He is all we need. My family and I go on mission trips to Mexico every year. One of the things we do is to go door-to-door and bring the gospel to extremely poor towns. Now, Imagine walking into a house made out of milk cartons with no electricity or running water, and 10 people living in it. You would imagine that the people there would be really unhappy with life, but actually they are the happiest people you could ever meet. They offer you all they have and greet you with a radiant smile. Why are they so happy? In having nothing, they find strength and hope n the Lord and are filled with his grace and love, and that makes them shine with joy. 

Last year, Pope Francis tweeted,

Then, he said,

A couple months later, he added,

This year, he tweeted,

Finally,

To be completely honest with you, I was a little offended when I read the first tweet which said that
a Christian should never be bored or sad. What about all those people who have gone through tragic things or those who are in a lot of pain? Are they not allowed to be sad? Jesus came to the earth not to take away our suffering, but to teach us how to bear suffering, for he knew there was no life without suffering. Then, when Pope Francis tweeted the last tweet, I finally got it. He did not mean that nobody is allowed to be sad. He meant that Christ brings so much joy into our lives, and that we should share that experience with everyone we come in contact with. We should not keep quiet about our 'secret' source of hope and happiness!

So, Christ brings the most happiness and joy into our lives, but of course, there are many other things that influence our happiness. I am really interested in psychology, especially positive psychology, and I came across a positive psychologist's TED talk, which I found amazing. His name is Shawn Achor.  He has published several books, some including The Happiness Advantage, and Before Happiness.  He explains that there are actually some ways to re-wire your brain to allow it to be more positive and to block negativity, therefore, seeing everything in a new light, and allowing you to be happier overall. He came up with the "5 Steps to a Happier Life" which I found really awesome and interesting, so I decided to make it one of my Lent resolutions! It has actually been a really cool experience and I have only been doing it for about a week. I really encourage you to look at some of Sean Achor's research and videos on youtube because it is so interesting. I want to share his steps with you!

5 Steps to a Happier Life

1. Write down 3 things you are grateful for each day.

  -You will realize that there are so many things to be grateful for, and remember to thank God for them.

2. Journal for 2 minutes a day describing one positive experience you had over the past 24 hours.

 - Remembering that positive experience will double your positive experiences because the brain is often confused about whether it is recalling a positive event or actually experiencing it.

3. Exercise for at least 10 minutes a day

 - Everyone knows exercise is good for you, even if you don't ant to do it. It brings so many good effects to your health.  Exercising creates a pattern in your brain leaving a  belief that your behavior matters, leading to better decisions like healthy eating, productivity, and positivity. 

4. Meditate/Pray for at least 2 minutes a day

-  Meditating creates a positive effect in the brain because it trains your brain to do a single thing at one time. 

- Prayer is the best and fastest communication device! Daily prayer gives us an opportunity to share all aspects of our lives with God and chance to express our gratitude for the things He provides. It also provides the platform for confessing our sins and asking for help in overcoming that sin. Lastly, daily prayer is an act of worship and obedience.

5. Participate in Random acts of kindness! Think of others before yourself.

-Random Acts of kindness create a ripple effect that leave everyone in the world happier, and you feel happier for making someone else happier. Random acts of kindness are the best. 

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Day 8 of Lent

• Live for others Jar- I actually did not pull out a name today because I spent about two hours writing more names and placing them inside the jar, and I thought it would not be fair to pull out a name when all of them weren't in there. I will be posting a picture of the jar tomorrow, because it looks awesome!
• 'Good deed a Day' - Smile. So this one seems really easy, but it actually wasn't. I don't know what my problem is. Even when I am really happy, my face doesn't really show it. So today, something happened, and I wasn't really happy with the situation, but instead of putting on a sad face, I smiled. It felt awesome and it actually made me stop being upset. It was a stupid reason to be upset about anyways. 
• Positive experience of the day- I got to see my friend Brittany. She is a really good friend and I miss her a lot. She texted me because she needed someone to talk to, and I was really glad to see her, even though she was clearly upset. I wish I could have done more to help her, but I had no idea how to comfort her. I was really happy to see her though, and I will hopefully get to see her again tomorrow.
• 3 Things I am Grateful for

1. My friend Brittany
2. Ice Cream
3. My Ipad

• Prayer intentions-  For flight 777 and the passenger's families, for my friend Brittany, for all of those who are lonely, and those who are fighting an illness.